The Elements of General Method, Based on the Principles of Herbart

cts as helping toward that aim, the natural interests which give zest to studies, and finally the general plan of combining and relating topics so as to bring a

s process casts us forthwith into the midst of psychology, and calls for a knowledge of that succession and net-work of mental activities discussed in all the psychologies; sensation, discrimination, perception, analysis a

teaching. Even eminent specialists in electricity and chemistry have not often been those to draw the immediate practical benefit from their studies. The application of psych

may first observe how far the mind is unnaturally inclined to follow this process, and whether it is a mark of healthy

particular object. But when it discovers that one of the neighbors has a similar building called a barn, it learns to put these different objects under one head, and the general notion barn as a building for horses, cattle, and feed, gradually rises in the mind. Long before the child is six yea

times till the word horse becomes associated with that animal. While out walking it sees another horse, and pointing its finger says "horse." The memory of the first horse and the similarity calls forth the natural conclusion that this is a horse, though it may

name book, another stove, etc. The work of observing, comparing, and classifying is a perpetual operation in the child's active moods. In this way, what may appear at first as an interminable confusion or blur of objects in nature begins to fall into groups and classe

ht and touch to detect the quality of goods. He compares and classifies his experiences and becomes in time an expert in judging textile fabrics. On t

from the individual particulars to the general classes of his whole system. The merchant and the scientist follow out with painstaking care and industry the same course which was involuntarily taken by the child; namely, observation of particulars, comparing and grouping into classes. The same habit of mind may be observed in all people who are

enturies men remained ignorant of the underlying harmony. Nature is full of valuable secrets, but they lie concealed from the careless eye. They are to be detected by prying deeper into individual facts, by putting a thing here and a thing there together, by pondering on the relationship of things to each other in their nature, appearance, and cause. It is a remarkable fact that we not only increase knowledge best by analyzing, comparing, and classifying objects, experience, and phenomena-even into old age-but t

d in gaining its groups, that it falls into natural errors and misconceptions; but in spite of these eccentric movements, the general trend is toward classifications and toward the language symbols that express them. In this power to associate, classify, and symbolize the products of experience in words is seen

a natural sequence where they will strengthen and support one another, it should be studied and used by teachers. It would be very commonplace to say that each of the faculties or activities involved in the inductive process should be disciplined and strengthened by school studies. There is but little difference of opinion on this subject, though some would lay more stress upon sense training, some on memory, some on reasoning. The ground for this general conviction is the notorious fact th

dge in each subject, and that all the kinds of mental life are brought into action in nearly every study. In short, the inductive process is a natural highway of human thought in every line of study, bringing all the mental forces into an orderly, successive,

this careless, unconscious, inductive tendency in children into the pa

oad are much more frequently traveled in childhood, and still others in youth and maturity. It is the work of pedagogy to adapt its materials to thes

ts surroundings tells us what it is. Now trace the operation of the mill as it draws up the logs singly from the rafts lying on the margin of the river and converts them into lumber. You observe first how the logs are carried up an inclined slide by means of an endless chain with hooks, into the mill. You examine this first piece of machinery and notice its mode of action. As the logs enter the upper story of the mill, they are thrown by heavy levers to either side and roll down toward the saws. Here is another piece of machinery in its proper place. Having been stripped of the loose pieces of bark, the lo

in review you survey the whole process in its successive stages and understand each part and its relation to the whole and to the purpose of the mill. We might call this an analysis and synthesis of the process of making lumber, or in oth

cupations and sights along the Upper Mississippi and its head-waters, the pineries, and even the spring floods, are intimately connected, causally, with the saw-mills and lumber yards lower down. Or going in the opposite direction from the saw-mill, we follow the lumber ti

individual machines of which the series is composed to the classes of which these objects are typical. A circular-saw or a gang-saw is each typical of a class of saws. The same is true of each part of the machinery, as well as of the saw-mill or planing-mill considered as a whole. Each of these objects, whether simple or complex, suggests others similar which we have observed or seen represented in pictures. Eac

from the single example to the class of which it is typical. Absorption and reflection! The mind swings back and forth like a pendulum between these two operations. Herbart, who closely defined this process, called it the mental act of

on of the whole. The shuttle-like movement of the mind back and forth between the parts, absorbed for a moment, reflecting for a moment, continues until the complex mechanism is understood. When this process has been satisfactorily completed, we are ready to turn our minds again to the other objects and rooms of the printing establishment. The work of the compositors, setting up different kinds of type, the proof-reading, the editorial work, the reporters, all come in for a share of attention. The reporters lead us

quisition and assimilation of knowledge in different subjects will be found to exhibit the mental states of absorption and reflection as just illustrated. Observe the manner in which we study a poem. It is first read and interpreted sentence by sentence, glancing from verse to verse to get the connections. When the whole piece has been read and understood in its parts and connections, the suggested lines of thought are taken up and followed out in their wider applications. Take for example the "Burial of Moses," and in the proper anal

ht into comparison till the general notion, publishing-house, is more clearly conceived. The same is true in the lumber trade. The concept lumber-business is not confined to Minneapolis or Chicago, but is common to the great lake region, Maine, Washington, Norway, and other countries. Concepts become more varied and com

e by an increase of words. But an examination of words in common use will show that they are nearly all the names of concepts. Proper names are the principal exception. Every common noun, verb, adjective, adverb, and preposition is the name of a

inductive process and to drive it stern forwards through grammar, geography, and other studies. Take, for example, the word boomerang as it comes up in a geography or reading lesson. Webster's dictionary, which is recommended to children as a first resort in such difficulties, calls it "A remarkable missile weapon used by the natives of Australia." This gives a faint notion by using the familiar word weapon. The picture accompanying the word in the dictionary gives a

observable by the senses. Grammar and language, when studied as a science, advance from concept to concept through etymology and syntax. In geography and history the concepts are less definite and more difficult to formulate, and yet there are many typical ideas which are to be developed and illustrated in each of these studies; in history, for example, colony, legislature, governor, general, revolution, institutions and customs, political party, laws of development, causal relati

ynthesis. The next movement is from this whole or object toward a group of similar objects, a class notion. By comparing one thing with others similar, a class notion is formed which includes them all. Each individual is a whole, but is also a type of the entire group. The general mental movement is successively in two directions from any particular object; first, from the whole to the parts, then grasping this whole in a richer, fuller sense, the mind seeks for relations which bind this object with others similar into a group, a more complex product, a concept. There may appear to be an exception to this rule in the case of a city, a continent, a railroad, or any concrete object so large and complex that it cannot be grasped by a single effort of sense

e are led to a closer practical discussion of each of the two chief stages of induction: First, observation or intuition; that is, the direct perception through the s

) of society, and of history, is based upon a knowledge of our own feelings and mental acts, and upon the accuracy with which we have observed and interpreted similar things in other persons. We have already seen that a right appreciation of companions, biographies, social life, and history, is the strongest of psychological forces in its formative influence upon character. For this reason, also, history includes the first and most important body of school studies. But object lessons drawn from physical nature do not measurably qualify us for a better appreciat

e are the various kinds and dispositions of men, different classes and races of people, with great variety of character, occupation, and education. Their actions, modes of dress, and customs are included. But we have many other primary and indispensable lessons to learn from the playground, the street, from home and church, from city and country, from travel and sight seeing, from holidays and work days, from sickness, and healthful excursions. Even a child's own tempers, faults, and successes are of the greatest value to himself and to the teacher in a proper self-understanding and mastery. By object lessons, th

lex Chi

for a bare

m, the stars, etc. Still they must know these very things and know how to use them better in constructing the mind's treasures than they are wont to do. In reading, grammar, geography, arithmetic, and nature study, we desire

very study is awakened and constantly reenforced by an appeal, not to books, but to life. Much of the dull w

are often based directly upon particular persons or phenomena. In addition to this it may be said that the interests of children are overwhelmingly with the concrete and imaginative phases of every subject, and

e material upon which an abiding interest in any subject is to be kindled. There are indeed other and perhaps higher

out of stuff that is already in the mind, as woolen blankets are spun and woven out of fleeces. Our present contention is that the mind shall be filled up with the best quality of raw stuff, otherwise there will be defect and deficiency in its later products. The stuff out of which concepts are built is drawn from the varied experiences of life. On account of this intimate relation between the realities of life and school studies they cannot be separated. Every branch, especially in elementary studies, must be treated concretely and be built up out of sense materials. Every study has its concrete side, its illustrative materials, its colors of individual things taken from life. Every study has likewise its more general scientific truths and classificat

ected in two or three years to supply the whole school curriculum. But this thought is now abandoned. Children in the earlier grades may properly spend more time in object study than in later grades, but there is

real life to be understood. We should have no faith in electricity if it were simply a scientific theory, if it had not demonstrated its power through material objects. The idea of cohesion would never have been dreamed of, if it had not become necessary to explain certain physical facts. The spherical form of the earth was not accepted by many even learned men until sailors with ships had gone around it. Political ideas of popular government which a few centuries ago were regarded as purely utopian are now accepted as facts because they have become matters of common observation. The circulation of the blood remained a secret for many centuries because of the difficulties of bringing it hom

jects is to lay the foundation of all wisdom, all eloquence, and of all good and prudent action. The right instruction of youth does not consist in cramming them with a mass of words, phrases, sentences, and opinions collected from authors. In this way the youth are taught, like Aesop

he things signified. The difference is like that between learning the names of a list of persons at a reception, and being present to enter into acquaintance and conversation with the guests. The oft-quoted dictum of Kant is a laconic summary of this argument. "General notions (concepts) without sense-percepts are empty." The general definition of composite

reflection and survey. We are seeking for a general term that covers the several steps in the latter part of the inductive process. It includes compa

edge is not power. Facts which have been simply stored in the memory are often of little ready use. It is like wheat in the bin, which must first pass through the mill and change its entire form before it will perform its function. Facts, in order to become the personal property of the owner, must be worked over, sifted, sorted, classified, and connected. The process of elaborating and assimilating knowledge is so important that it requires more time and pains than the first labor of acquisition. Philosophers will admit this at once, but it is hard for us to break loose from the traditions of the schoolmasters. The mind is not in all respects like a lumber-yard. It is, to be sure, a place for storing up knowledge, just as the yard is a de

so the mind. Ideas entering the mind are not so easily assimilated as the food materials that enter the stomach. A cow chews her cud once, but the ideas that enter our minds may be drawn from their receptacle in the memory and worked over again and again. Ideas have to be put side by side, separated, grouped, and arranged into connected series. There is, no doubt, some tendency in the mind toward involuntary assimilation, but it greatly needs culture and training. Many

e second form and that upon which the inductive process is principally founded. In the third case objects and series are easily retained in memory when the relation of cause and effect is perceived between them. These natural highways of association, especially the second and third, should be frequently traveled in linking the facts of school study

k, as we have seen, to develop logical concepts out of these immature and faulty psychical concepts. A child is disposed to call tadpoles fishes; and later porpoises and whales are faultily classed with the fishes in the same way. Nearly all our psychical concepts are subject to such loose and faulty judgments. Even where one is accurate in his observations, the conclusions naturally drawn are often wrong. For example, a child that has seen none but red squirrels would naturally think all squirrels red, and include the quality red in his general notion. Most of our empirically derived general notions are spotted with such defects. What relation have these

s form. Moreover, the results reached, when reduced to the strict scientific form, are the same in the inductive methods as in the deductive or common text-book method. Not that the effect on the mind of the learner is the same but the body of truth is u

ossession, but an appreciation of its value. The method of reaching scientific knowledge through the inductive process, that is by the collection and comparison of data with a view to positive insight, will give greater meaning to the results. Interest is awakened and se

average minds, real scientific knowledge is attainable except by a strong admixture of inductive processes. Perfection in the form and structure of our concepts is not to

to gain any vantage ground in judging the objects and phenomena constantly presenting themselves. In fact, it is inevitable that inductive and deductive processes will be constantly dovetailed into each other. The faulty concepts arrived at are brought persistently into contact with new individual cases. They are thus corrected, enlarged, and more accurately grasped. This is the series of mental stepping-stones that leads up gradually to logical concepts. The inductive process is the fundamental one and deduction comes in at every s

ing as the German word, Anschauung, for which there is no popular equivalent in English. Intuition, as defined by Web

see Quick's Educational Reforme